The Guilford Project item 6

This volume is one of the many manuscripts in the Guilford Collection which provide direct insights into papal diplomacy and European history in the early modern period. It contains letters sent by Cardinal Francesco Barberini to Pier Luigi Caraffa, papal nuncio at Cologne, in 1631 and 1632, at the height of the Thirty Years' War. The letter shown here was written on 7 June 1631, in response to the news that on 20th May the siege of Magdeburg had been ended when Count Tilly, commander of the Catholic League, sacked the town.